Luciano Duarte

There is something really beautiful in the process of poetic creation that only the poet can experience. The poem, when conceived, most often looks excellent: the idea is given, which is timidly transferred to the paper. Here, there is nothing concrete and well-defined, only a vague intention, and an image that seems to glimmer. Then follows the sketch, which comes out clumsy, if not disastrous, resulting in a kind of reality shock in the poet’s head. The idea, once brilliant, now seems bad, and its realization seems unfeasible, unable to produce the effects that seemed so simple and certain. The poet, then, has to decide: does he abandon the enterprise? does he continue with his intent? If he chooses the latter, there follows a long and exhausting work to improve the repulsive sketch, to bring it as close as possible to that image that seemed optimal to him. Then the verses are repeated over and over again in his mind and, little by little, it points out their flaws, modifies them, substituting words, framing them in a more interesting and more pleasant rhythm. Finally, almost miraculously, the sketch becomes a poem, and no longer retains the bulk of the disgusting aspects of former times. Sometimes there is a satisfactory approximation to the initial idea; sometimes something different is achieved. The time comes when the verses, already engraved in the mind, have to rest. And for an indefinite time, unexpectedly, the mind goes on with its work, polishing some edges, pointing out new solutions, and sometimes giving a hitherto non-existent shine to the verses already shaped. When this happens, the poet, remembering the bitter impression made by the sketch, and comparing it with the final result, can only rejoice and smile.

My best humor—I can perhaps call it my sarcastic vein—proves to me the best precisely because it manifests itself with maximum intensity at serious moments. I know well how Cioran felt: it is an irresistible impulse! This is why, relaxed, I may not feel instigated to joke. To make good jokes, I have to be in a solemn atmosphere; then they come out as if by automatism, if not necessity. And so I realize that in these Notes, which are light, calm, almost effortless, it is very rare to find evidence of my fatal inclination to clowning. But in my “serious” lines, where I put myself in a state of full concentration, where I extract from my heart what seems to me the purest truth, where—there is no denying it…— I often get myself, exactly like Cioran, to pour pessimism, despair and disenchantment on paper, then, precisely in these moments, also like Cioran, I have the feeling that it is almost a sin to waste them as a background for a crude joke. Unfortunately, I cannot change my nature…